Comments on: Trioli Redux; Murdoch's ABC frontier

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:45:44 +0000

I’m more generous: it was a worthwhile policy experiment, but one that has ended in failure. No need for recrimination – lets move on, with sensible program of nationalizing public goods (since its clearly cool to nationalise shit now, right Wall St?).

By: David Irving (no relation)

David Irving (no relation) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:34:04 +0000

Although Howard was an enthusiastic fellow-traveler, LeftyE, it’s mostly down to Thatcher and Reagan.

Oh, and bastards like Friedmann.

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:23:41 +0000

Absolutely Kat & david- and lets face it, who’s going to come in and run a full quarter of the sector now?

No one, is the answer. Its government. Good thing too. That dodgy entepreneur was living hand to mouth on govt handouts anyway, just like practically every other privatsed public service. Market analysts weren’t touching him a bargepole as long as 3 years ago.

HELLO!! TIME TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE TRUTH: The private sector is f’n USELESS at large scale service provision of public goods.

Another woeful failure of the Howard era comes home to roost. One quarter of Australian working families have no childcare! How’s that for productivity?

Will the policy disasters of the Howard era ever end?

By: David Irving (no relation)

David Irving (no relation) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:38:08 +0000

LeftyE – the collapse of ABC “Learning” and the (I’m sure) not unrelated collapse of whoever-the-fuck owned the railway line to Darwin are proof (as if we needed any) of the superiority of Private Enterprise (TM) over publicly-owned and -run utilities.

Repeat after me until your head asplodes, “The private sector does it better, the private sector does it better, … ”

Which encapsulates exactly what was wrong with Murdoch’s senile maunderings, Adrien.

By: Kat

Kat — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:08:37 +0000

Kat – It’ll be long term and subtle and he’s not going to abandon his quest for marketshare and global conquest, just modify it a tad.

Adrien, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Left E, totally agree regarding ABC Childcare. Another capitalist failure, now in need of ‘socialism’ to ensure the service keeps running.

Surely the myth of private enterprise being more capable than Govt has now been well and truly exploded?

By: Adrien

Adrien — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:34:23 +0000

So in answer to my question Mark the answer is no.
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Trouble is you don’t follow me. I’m not talking about smaller classroom sizes or increased methods of interaction. I’ve got more radical notions in mind. How ’bout this: do we actually need schools at all? Well for the time being yes. But I reckon we can do better.
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Unfortunately you can’t go there. The Right say: tradition, tradition, Shakespeare, Admiral Wellingtonboots, British flag harumph harumph.
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The Left say: More money, more schools, What? That’s an idea I haven’t heard before you must be a NeoLiberal.
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Well I’m glad to see Australia continues the fine tradition of being always absolutely third rate.

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:06:24 +0000

Speaking of ABC and education: hooray for the collapse of ABC childcare today. What a complete policy disgrace – childcare for profit. Good riddance.

Perfect opportunity climate to nationalise the job lot of them, hand them over the local councils, where they should be.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:02:30 +0000

Adrien, go talk to some teachers.

I’m not going to spend my limited time on finding you links or whatever. I can assure you from my own experience that is not how teachers are trained to teach now – although obviously it’s part of the toolkit – and it’s not how teachers prefer to work. The whole point of the debate about smaller classroom sizes is that it enables a variety of teaching methodologies to minimise the amount of chalk and talk. This is well known in school education circles.

I’m not trying to do some sort of “gotcha” internetty argument – I’m merely seeking to inform, and if you want to know more rather than proceed on the basis of assumptions then I’d suggest doing some research in texts about teaching methodology.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:50:13 +0000

Mark I shouldn’t have to demonstrate that the standard mode of teaching hasn’t changed. You have to demonstrate the reverse. Tne burden is on you.
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Are you saying that students no longer sit in class, at one of the deks in a row, facing a teacher who teaches pretty much the same way as they did 150 years ago? Are you? Sure I haven’t been in a pre-tertiary classroom in a while but if they effected such a radical paradigm change I think I woulda noticed it somewhere reported.
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Formally it goes on as before. I don;t have to provide empirical evidence that that is so. If you wish to demonstrate that it’s changed please do so.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:40:32 +0000

Sorry, Adrien, I’m unconvinced that your generalisation about the current paradigm has any basis, and that’s what I’m asking you to elucidate. I don’t believe that chalk and talk is the predominant teaching methodology any more – because I know teachers and I’m familiar with teacher education – and I’m seeking some statement of why you think it is.

I do agree that the terms of this debate are largely meaningless, because Murdoch’s own statement is waffle.